STANLEY’S MASSIVE CHALLENGE
How Geelong’s ruckman plans to curb flying Eagle
GEELONG ruckman Rhys Stanley wants to try to run star West Coast big man Nic Naitanui off his feet as the Cats look to improve from a “patchy” start to the season.
In his 150th match, Stanley will have one of the biggest challenges in football in trying to contain the dual AllAustralian at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday.
Naitanui is at the peak of his powers, ranked first by Champion Data for clearances and centre bounce clearances and second in hitouts to advantage.
Stanley said he would try “not so much stop him, but challenge him”.
“He’s got some tricks and he’s been doing it for a long time and I think he’s got his body in a really good space at the moment and is obviously injury-free,” he said.
“He seems to be playing back at his prime sort of level and he’s playing with confidence again, which is obviously good to see and good to see him playing his best.
“I’ll have to try to find ways to run him around ... might be able to blow him up a little bit.”
Stanley said he had to stop Naitanui imposing himself on the game.
“(If) he gets it on his terms and finds his groove, he’s very hard to stop. He’s a good player. I’m obviously going to have my work cut out for me,” he said.
“I’ll just try to be as active as I can and move him around the ground and try to get him to chase me around a little bit.”
Stanley reaches his 150th match in his 13th year in the system.
The father-of-two has played 91 games with Geelong since being traded by St Kilda at the end of 2014.
“It’s taken me a while to get there — 2008 I was drafted,” Stanley said.
“I’ve obviously had some injuries along the way. I’m obviously pretty happy to have been able to hang around long enough to play that many, and hopefully a few more.”
He said he was proud that he had overcome adversity in reaching the milestone.
“When I kept ripping hamstrings, that wasn’t fun,” he said.
“Had the broken foot and other bits and bobs. It wasn’t great spending so much time in rehab.
“Being at Geelong, once I sort of got there and found a groove, I got some confidence and had a really good coaching group and group of players around me that gave me the confidence to build my game and build that consistency in my game.”
Stanley said Geelong’s 3-2 start to the season had been “patchy” and “frustrating”. “We’re just going,” he said. “There’s some good parts of our game and stuff we’d love to work on and get better.
“It’s a long season. We’ve got a long way to go.”